


Birds

by JenCforCarolina



Series: Auburn [13]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: In this world Zavala dies to the Barons, and Auburn is there to watch. In this world, the Vanguard grow wings the moment they are chosen for that duty. There can be only one at a time.
Series: Auburn [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1249997
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Birds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bioluminesce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioluminesce/gifts).



> This fic has prerequisites. It is an AU inspired by an AU ([Nem’s Wings AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178692/chapters/56296291)), _of_ an AU ([My "Zavala died instead of Cayde in Forsaken and Auburn became Vanguard" AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10842378/chapters/45785122)). It was also prompted by [Nemonus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/pseuds/Nemonus). Happy birthday Nem!
> 
> I don’t expect more than a handful of people to understand but, for you all, enjoy!

The sudden pain between Auburn’s shoulder blades is a phantom one, that’s all. Zavala’s fragile wings are broken where he fell, his own armor and weight crushing them in the sprawl. She has always been keen to get drunk on empathy, always leapt quickly to feel what another feels, and she believes that is why her back burns like something is trying to escape. She is imagining having broken wings, because she can’t help but to do so. And maybe to keep from imagining a world without her vanguard.

Still, it is quickly overshadowed by the pain in her gut and the warm blood pooling below her and the pulse of light leaving her veins, in time with her heartbeat. It’s slipping, seeping away, and it’s not coming back. The darkness is choking. Titans are great silos of light, they take it in and store it and share it, but she’s sprung a leak and feels like a boat with a hole in it’s hull, sinking. Scout is trying not to panic, he knows it won’t help, but they’ve never been so close to death before, and he has to stay hidden, he cannot come out, not after what just happened to-

Even when the darkness subsides with Uldren and the barons’ departure, even when she is revived, she feels dead. She is numb in so many places her back draws no attention. It falls to the bottom of her mind.

As a Guardian, she appears externally fit. As a human, all her wounds scab slowly. Her mind causes pain wherever it can think to. Each of these emotions harden and are shed. The guilt she rips off first, painfully, but she knows she must. Next is the anger and hate, alien things that make her uncomfortable and sick. These too fade, and flakes off little by little, till there is nothing left but something raw and familiar beneath. Next is loss and the other pieces of grief, varied in shape and depth like shrapnel that she has to draw out one by one. She gently covers the wounds till they heal.

She spends weeks in her room in baggy clothes. The shirts never quite feel comfortable, she absently itches at her back. Auburn thinks: so long spent in armor and her own muscles are unfamiliar… but the morning she finds a russet feather under her pillow, she understands, and the crushing realization sends her to her knees on the floor.

Ikora finds her there, because she suspects, or she knows. She does not explain nor ask for explanation, just coaxes Auburn up to sit on the bed and talk until she has worked all the thoughts out in her mind. It takes seven hours and four cups of tea and an entire small box of tissues until she is willing to let Ikora cut slits in her oldest shirt and gently coax the new wings through. She sits and lets herself become aware of this new part of her, accepting if not embracing.

She stays in her room until her first molt, when all the new broken feathers fall and are replaced with the sleek and healthy plumage of a red-shouldered hawk. Ikora arranged for her armor to be quietly altered as needed. Auburn dons it and paces down the hall, out into the courtyard. The looks that fall on her are like little embers, but her back no longer aches and her shoulders no longer itch, and she can feel the folded wings behind her and in her periphery, even when she closes her eyes. It’s as though he is standing over her, surveying her actions with approval.

Auburn lifts her chin and takes her post beneath the Traveler.


End file.
